Injection Molding design

Agersens

Hi I have just started using Onshape after 25 plus years using numerous other CAD systems.
I am doing injection molded plastic parts and I am missing the following:

• Draft analysis - Does this exist in Onshape - I am currently exporting into another CAD system to do draft analysis
• Interference detection in assemblies - How is this handled apart from doing a section and trying to manually find them
• Mating parts in assemblies - My parts have draft and curved surfaces on them which makes them difficult to mate. They are not a screw in a hole. Problem would be solved if I could see planes from the parts in the assembly and use these to mate.My work around is to add an extrusion in the part to represent a plane, use this for mating and then delete it.

Comments would be appreciated.

Steve

brucebartlett

Hi Steve,

Draft analysis is not in Onshape at the moment. It is something that is missing for mold design. Hopefully, we will see it soon also with split line creation tools. I am sure the developers know what you're after just a matter of their priority. You can add your vote here to help prioritise this tool.
https://forum.onshape.com/discussion/comment/25556#Comment_25556

Interfere detection in assemblies is also missing, this is another important tool we will hopefully see added soon. Inferences are highlighted in red when using the section tool which I think is really nice, but this is not the same as a whole assy scan. Add your vote here. https://forum.onshape.com/discussion/comment/18003#Comment_18003 

For your mating of curved parts in assemblies, this can easily be fixed by adding a "mate connector" in your part studio and attaching it to your part. Hopefully, this picture explains. The part studio mate connector will follow the part into the assembly and can even the attach to a sketch or various other reference geometry in the part studio. There is quite a learning curve on Onshape mates when coming from other CAD systems but they are really nice once you understand how they work.

jason_swackhamer

Also, still no parting line draft or split lines—kind of deal breakers for plastic product design

PeteYodis

@jason_swackhamer Can you tell me what you mean by split lines?  You can currently use our split command to split faces on parts - which would be a pre-cursor need to draft by parting line.  

jason_swackhamer

@pete_yodisSorry! Haven't spent a lot of time with OnShape for a year or two...Saw the split part command, but didn't dig into it enough to see the face option. Sounds like you're working up to parting line draft. Soon? Look forward to diving into a more complicated design. 

PeteYodis

@jason_swackhamer We are working up to supporting parting line draft.  We know it's very important for any type of part that is molded/cast/forged.  We also know Draft Analysis is critical for working on and ensuring these parts are properly designed for tooling/process needs.

Wow... not been within Onshape in year or two.  A lot of functionality has been added since then.  See the list here:  https://forum.onshape.com/categories/recent-improvements

kevin_rand

For the record, I support all of the Steve's comments regarding design for injection molding. Parting line draft is top on my list, mating is definitely a major pain point, and the methods for analysis would be nice to have but not immediately necessary for my purposes. The only other feature I'd really love to have is a way to knit/close surfaces. Using boolean operations can be a workaround sometimes, but for truly complex surface modeling there're really no substitute.

Jake_Rosenfeld

Hi @kevin_rand,

You should check out out new "Fill" and "Enclose" features for knitting/closing surfaces:

https://forum.onshape.com/discussion/6826/improvements-to-onshape-july-6th-2017#latest

philip_thomas

https://www.onshape.com/cad-blog/whats-new-in-onshapes-latest-update-09-26-2017